LEO mission so the 2nd stage should have deorbited before making a single orbit - into the danger area in the Indian ocean posted a ways back?

You need L2 access.

Also, just look at the warning zones listed earlier in this thread. They span more than the usual time for second stage reentry. My guess was that the second stage was going to coast for a couple of orbits before trying for a deorbit burn. I doubt very much that the stage is still alive now, more than 24 hours after liftoff, if it is still up there at all.

LEO mission so the 2nd stage should have deorbited before making a single orbit - into the danger area in the Indian ocean posted a ways back?

You need L2 access.

Also, just look at the warning zones listed earlier in this thread. They span more than the usual time for second stage reentry. My guess was that the second stage was going to coast for a couple of orbits before trying for a deorbit burn. I doubt very much that the stage is still alive now, more than 24 hours after liftoff, if it is still up there at all.

- Ed Kyle

There could have been ride share CubeSats that S2 deployed. I believe the planned de-orbit was planned for orbit 3. saw that somewhere on NSF...

There could have been ride share CubeSats that S2 deployed. I believe the planned de-orbit was planned for orbit 3. saw that somewhere on NSF...

I might be missing something but wouldn't the NRO not be very keen on rideshares? My expectation was zero cubesats, as their orbits might give away info about the primary bird.

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"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

There could have been ride share CubeSats that S2 deployed. I believe the planned de-orbit was planned for orbit 3. saw that somewhere on NSF...

I might be missing something but wouldn't the NRO not be very keen on rideshares? My expectation was zero cubesats, as their orbits might give away info about the primary bird.

unless the cubesats were NRO's and are testbed for future technologies.

Point. In which case we may never know.... no announcement, no orbital elements, nothing.

Want to keep a really big secret? Wrap it in outer layers of secrets that are themselves hard to penetrate and not necessarily relevant/related. Include some false secrets too... (see "Footfall" for a plot device example of that)

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"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Falcon 1 is not provenContract with NASA is not provenFalcon 9 is not provenDragon is not provenISS resupply is not proven1st stage return is not provenBarge landing is not provenReuse is not proven=== You are here ===Falcon Heavy is not provenEconomy of reuse is not provenDragon 2 is not provenCrewed flights are not provenLunar flyby is not provenCapsule propulsive landing is not provenRed Dragon is not proven

An interesting note about this is that "Economy of reuse is not proven" is pretty much non-falsifiable. SpaceX has already reused a rocket without going bankrupt and they claim to be profitable. What more can they prove?

That they are still in business and growing their market share when they are launching a reused booster every week or two.* When they were only launching a few per year, some were claiming they were losing over a hundred million per launch. Can't do that launching monthly.

* Of course, by then it's too late if you are the competition betting against the economics...

« Last Edit: 05/02/2017 07:07 pm by AncientU »

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"If we shared everything [we are working on] people would think we are insane!"-- SpaceX friend of mlindner

An interesting note about this is that "Economy of reuse is not proven" is pretty much non-falsifiable. SpaceX has already reused a rocket without going bankrupt and they claim to be profitable. What more can they prove?

That it costs less to reuse a stage given the payload you have to sacrifice than to just build a new one. This includes the recurring costs of refurbishing stages - if a one-off was able to get done because tons of people worked 80 hour weeks without overtime, that is not necessarily sustainable.

I'm not suggesting that many people had to put in lots of hours unpaid which they wouldn't be willing to do every week, but that's one reason why they haven't shown its financially feasible yet.

Falcon 1 is not provenContract with NASA is not provenFalcon 9 is not provenDragon is not provenISS resupply is not proven1st stage return is not provenBarge landing is not provenReuse is not proven=== You are here ===Falcon Heavy is not provenEconomy of reuse is not provenDragon 2 is not provenCrewed flights are not provenLunar flyby is not provenCapsule propulsive landing is not provenRed Dragon is not proven

An interesting note about this is that "Economy of reuse is not proven" is pretty much non-falsifiable. SpaceX has already reused a rocket without going bankrupt and they claim to be profitable. What more can they prove?

The question is not "Is SpaceX profitable?"

Elon Musk has said they spent about a billion dollars developing recovery and reuse. So that needs to be recovered before they are making money with reuse. How long that takes depends on how much they discount the rockets for launch and how much it costs to refurbish them for the next launch. The issue boils down to the question - when do they make more money by reusing rockets than they spent on making them reusable?

An additional facet of this is "how much of your capabilities have you intentionally sacrificed to make your rocket reusable?" which is what ULA has been asking. There is a big gap between the expendable capabilities of the Falcon 9 compared to the capabilities it has when it's landing again.

IOW, how much money could you have made by simply using the maximum capabilities of your rocket? This is why ULA likes the idea of just recovering the engines with a parachute, it puts much less of a dent in the maximum capability of the rocket.

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"One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to." - Elon Musk"There are lies, damned lies, and launch schedules." - Larry J

Point. In which case we may never know.... no announcement, no orbital elements, nothing.

Want to keep a really big secret? Wrap it in outer layers of secrets that are themselves hard to penetrate and not necessarily relevant/related. Include some false secrets too... (see "Footfall" for a plot device example of that)

This one will be hard for amateur observers to track, Basically no one north of London will ever see it. Especially if it's sun sync such that it's always at it's highest latitude during the day. You'll have to be pretty far south to get a glimpse of it at night. Might just rule out it ever being spotted by many of the usual people who make it a habit of tracking these birds.

The issue boils down to the question - when do they make more money by reusing rockets than they spent on making them reusable?

...

IOW, how much money could you have made by simply using the maximum capabilities of your rocket?

You have to look at the ROI over the life of the product, not just the first couple of years. So if it were to take SpaceX 5 years to recoup their initial investment in reusability, that would leave many more years of competitive advantage for them in the marketplace.

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This is why ULA likes the idea of just recovering the engines with a parachute, it puts much less of a dent in the maximum capability of the rocket.

ULA has stated Vulcan won't be reusable when it becomes operational, so no one knows how many years (decades) it would be until they implement it. In the mean time SpaceX should have recouped their investment in reusability by the time Vulcan launches, and will already be discounting their launch services based on being profitable at much lower prices. Far lower than what ULA will be able to offer.

And at that point, who cares if SpaceX is not maximizing the capabilities of their launch vehicles on every launch?

"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Wow, there sure were some great close-ups of the returning booster - anybody notice that?

Yes... multiple times in both the UPDATES and DISCUSSION threads. And, yes, they are fantastic images.

How come such amazing camera work this time around? Any chance we'll see nice close-ups like that from now on? Or does it get special love because it's for NRO? It really does look awe-inspiring to see it such closer detail when it's coming down like that - flames and all!

Wow, there sure were some great close-ups of the returning booster - anybody notice that?

Yes... multiple times in both the UPDATES and DISCUSSION threads. And, yes, they are fantastic images.

How come such amazing camera work this time around? Any chance we'll see nice close-ups like that from now on? Or does it get special love because it's for NRO? It really does look awe-inspiring to see it such closer detail when it's coming down like that - flames and all!

We got great views mainly because:

1- It was daytime.2- It was not too cloudy3- Focus on first stage due to nature of the mission

I hope they keep this up, and if we're lucky we'll see this again with CRS-11.